How might we relate to the standards that our culture hands us around parenting, partnering, working, and being a person? On the one hand, they can be of immense value. They can give us a way to orient to what might be important and worth paying attention to. But on the other hand they can be stultifying, the source of endless comparison and self-criticism, and an impossible goal of perfection. And they can leave us feeling very alone as we look around us and imagine that other people’s lives are not as messy, confusing, and unpredictable as ours are. 

So can we might find a more life-giving way to relate to the standards and ideals we choose to live by? What might happen if instead of turning to social media and our own fantasies about other people, we turned simultaneously towards our own way of knowing and to the wisdom of others around us as we each take our next steps in the roles in life we’re pursuing?

Hosted, as always, by Lizzie Winn and Justin Wise of Thirdspace.

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Turning Towards Life, a week-by-week conversation inviting us deeply into our lives, is a live 30 minute conversation hosted by Justin Wise and Lizzie Winn of Thirdspace.  Find us on FaceBook to watch live and join in the lively conversation on this episode. You can find videos of every episode, and more about the project on the Turning Towards Life website, and you can also watch and listen on Instagram, YouTube, and as a podcast on Apple, Google, Amazon Music and Spotify.

Here’s our source for this week, from a message between Molly, a mum, and her birth doula Natalie.

Not Trying to Be Perfect

Hello Natalie… I cannot tell you how much more content I am now that I have ditched social media and trying to be perfect. I have a wonderful set of mum friends and we can go to each others’ houses even when it’s so untidy it looks like we’ve been burgled, join in with whatever that night’s plans for tea are and let our kids play or fall asleep on the sofa while we hang out. It’s great.

The Shirley Hughes book is so lovely. Nobody in her illustrations has an immaculate house or sensory play bins. Her children accompany mums and dads on errands and cooking and gardening and the school run. That’s enough. I’ve gone back to a corporate job and really, in what industry would you ask one person to work day and night shifts as CEO, CFO, COO, CTO, personal assistant, drive, head of logistics, head of learning and development, washerwoman, cleaner and cook all in one. It’s ridiculous. No wonder so many parents are miserable. They feel like a failure because we set impossible expections.

Which leads me back to the only tick list one should have at the end of day… ‘all fed, none dead, mostly in bed’. My new standard is… everyone warm and dry, clean bum, have we been outside, full tummies, making sure we eat some vegetables, not too much telly, focusing on kindness to each other. I find it so much easier to REALLY feel my red lines/bondaries this way. It works for us.

Lots of love

Molly

Photo by Luis Tosta on Unsplash